Correct tail panel paint treatment

[Brads70]

To my eye the tailpanel looked the same as the original Argent headlight paint. Here are a few pictures of the original argent paint on my headlight buckets

[70/6chall]

Brad.......... I have an SE tail trim panel on my '70 Challenger in SE trim, and the same astrotone paint on my grill and headlight bezels, is the same type paint on my SE finish panel in back. Just thought I'd mention it. From the look of your pics it's the same paint.    Thanks,   Al

[Vince P]

For the 1972 Rallye, does anyone know if the black organosol paint covers the entire tail panel to the top and to the trunk lip or does it end on the edge of the tail panel face? The posted picture of the unrestored original is a great reference, I just can't see where the organosol ends. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[GY3R/T]

    NOS Panel.      HEAVY texture. Comparable to 60-80 grit sand paper. Hope colors can be seen.

[Burdar]

For the 1972 Rallye, does anyone know if the black organosol paint covers the entire tail panel to the top and to the trunk lip or does it end on the edge of the tail panel face? The posted picture of the unrestored original is a great reference, I just can't see where the organosol ends. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm sure the factory masked each 72 Challenger tail panel the same way.  The only thing that changed was the paint used.  The black should go up into the trunk about an inch just like an argent tail panel.

The tail light housings themselves would have come from a separate vender already painted the correct colors.  They probably even had the tail light lenses already installed.(one less thing they had to do at the factory)

[Headjam]

1970 RT/SE trim panel. I thought the they would use the same paint on the Rallye wheel center caps but they aren't close. The center caps are much rougher and lighter color.

[cataclysm80]

1970 Challengers with the V9 Bumblebee Stripe, had the stripe painted first and masked off before applying body color.

[cataclysm80]

Challenger T/A had Organisol tailpanel blackout, extending half way under the tailpanel trim pieces, 1 inch into the trunk lip, and downward to blackout the area behind the rear bumper.
The rear edge of the trunk lid was also blacked out with organisol, 1.25 inches so that no body color would be seen between the tailpanel blackout and the spoiler.
Challenger T/A also had vinyl blackout pieces on the quarter panels under each end of the spoiler.  These are positioned all the way to the rear against the tailpanel trim pieces, so that no body color would be seen between the tailpanel blackout and the spoiler.

[cataclysm80]

Non-T/A 1970 Challengers have a body color tailpanel.
The engineering diagram doesn't specify any blackout behind the bumper for these cars.  Maybe a page is missing?  Look at your car for evidence one way or the other.
Yes, this includes 70 R/T cars, they did have body color tailpanels.  A black tailpanel on a 70 R/T is a common mistake.

[cataclysm80]

SE Challengers, and Challengers with the A63 or A91 option packages, have an aluminum trim panel that covers the body color tailpanel.  This aluminum trim panel is painted argent, though the shade of argent can vary between dark and light.  There's only one part number for this trim panel, and no intentional difference to what cars received which shade of argent.  It's just luck of the draw.
R/T SE cars did use this SE tailpanel treatment.
Early in production, a small number of these panels with black paint instead of argent, seem to have been used on R/T SE cars and R/T A63 cars.
(more pics in next three comments because this topic regularly comes up)

Additional note: The trunk lock cylinder is not supposed to pass through the aluminum panel.  The trunk lock cylinder goes in the tailpanel like normal, and the aluminum trim panel mounts on top of it.

The second picture here shows the holes used to fasten the aluminum trim panel to the car.

[cataclysm80]

This is two pictures of the same R/T car with A63 option package.
You can see that the argent on this tailpanel looks pretty dark at a glance, but when you get up close to really look at it, it's argent.
Some people mistake this for black, especially on non-black cars where there isn't much black nearby to compare with.

[cataclysm80]

Here's another one.
Look at the paint in the trunk, it's not a black car, but it does have a V9X black bumblebee stripe.
This is a dark textured argent on the panel, and you can compare it to the black of the bumblebee stripe and the black on the taillight housing.
Lighting can really affect the way that textured argent looks in a photo, so it helps to have some actual black in the photo for comparison.

[cataclysm80]

Now here is a closeup of the panel on JS27V0B100021.
This is one of the early cars which received a black panel.
It's actually black, and you'll notice that it's not textured, it's satin, similar to what's used on other bright anodized aluminum trim pieces like the 70 R/T grills, and the 71 Challenger R/T taillpanel moldings.
Compare it to the black on the Chrome taillight housings.

[cataclysm80]

1971 Challenger R/T, and 1971 Non-R/T Challengers with A22 had Organisol tailpanel blackout, extending half way under the bright aluminum tailpanel trim pieces, and downward to the bodyline above the taillight openings.  This blackout was not applied to the immediate taillight area which is covered by the 1971 rear trim panel, and also didn't go downward behind the bumper.
The rear trim panel itself is Organisol black, except for the area immediately surrounding the lenses, which is bright silver similar to rallye wheel paint.  The top edge of the trim panel is blacked out, it's not silver.  Making the top edge silver like a Non-R/T car is a common mistake.
The bright aluminum tailpanel trim pieces and trunk molding have a character line, and the inside half of them is painted satin black.  1971 is the only year with blackout on the bright aluminum tailpanel trim.
(The cars in these 3 pictures are original paint)

[cataclysm80]

1971 Non-R/T Challengers had a body color tailpanel.  Their rear trim panel was argent, except for the area immediately surrounding the lenses, which is a bright silver similar to rallye wheel paint.  The top edge of the trim panel is also bright silver.